Event

Daniel Posner, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Title: Ethnic Favoritism in Primary Education in Kenya

Abstract: African leaders are widely presumed to favor members of their own ethnic groups with patronage resources.  We assess the empirical validity of this claim by studying ethnic favoritism in the education sector in Kenya.  We use data on the educational attainment of more than fifty thousand Kenyans dating back to the colonial era, as well as information about the ethnic identities of Kenyan presidents, cabinet members, and high-level education bureaucrats since independence.  We find that h aving a coethnic as president during one’s primary school-age years is associated with about a one-quarter of a year increase in years of primary schooling with and substantial increases in the probability of attending and completing both primary and secondary school.  We also find that ethnic favoritism extends beyond the president:  coethnics of the minister of education also acquire more schooling than children from other ethnic groups.  In contrast to the findings of some recent studies, we find that multiparty political competition has no impact on the degree of ethnic favoritism by presidents and ministers of education.  Nor has ethnic favoritism in the education sector varied across Kenya’s presidents. Having established the role of ethnic favoritism in educational outcomes, we identify and provide suggestive evidence about the possible mechanisms explaining these patterns.

We also highlight the substantive importance of ethnic favoritism by comparing our estimated effects to those estimated in studies of policy interventions designed to increase educational achievement in the developing world and by estimating the long-term impact of ethnic favoritism through education on a number of long-term socio-economic outcomes.

A copy of the paper to be discussed is attached below. 

Lunch will be served.